Some Links

Tutorials

License

Quality of IT Education – Where do we begin?

Niraj suggested that an article about the quality of IT education
in Goa for the ECAP issue would be nice. It started a chain of
thought about what exactly do we mean by quality of education. Is it
just about the courses we teach and how well we teach them? Is it
about how well the students do in the exams and how useful is their
education in their working life? Perhaps, we need to look a little
deeper. Rather than worrying about the content and delivery, we need
to worry about the entire process. We live in an age of information
and entertainment. Can our education system remain immune to these
changes? Can we continue to teach at a leisurely pace in a tedious
and boring way when the attention span is becoming shorter? Even more
so, what do we teach when the volume of knowledge is becoming so
large?

These are issues not just for Goa but for entire India and,
probably, even much of the world. Since Goa is a small and literate
state with a very cosmopolitan outlook, it is possible to explore and
implement alternative methods very quickly here, provided we have the
will. Believe me, the solution is not computers with LCD projectors.
Powerpoint, Open Office or multimedia presentations can be even more
tedious after the novelty wears off.

Where do we begin? A lesson learnt the hard way in programming is
that it takes far too long to implement a new system if you throw
away the existing one and start from scratch. The best solution is to
start with what we have, identify the major bottlenecks and solve
these. Hence, let us look at the current visible bottlenecks.

The first and foremost is our examination system. It is the
examination system which prevents the curriculum from being revised
at the required pace. Teachers are more than willing (and I assure
you that those who aren't will fall in line!)

We probably need to move towards two types of examinations. The
first type is the one which certifies that a certain level of
competency in a subject has been achieved. There is no grade or class
but just an assertion that the student has developed the set of
skills necessary for programming in Java, or can apply and use data
structures effectively. This type of exams should be used for the
foundation courses and whereever appropriate. The advanced courses
must move towards grades and given by the instructor only. (The
instructor should be able to justify his grading to an external
auditor.)

The certification examinations can be driven by IT and, hence, can
be very frequent. A person may appear every day should he so choose.
My conviction is that a person just cannot clear suitably designed
tests by just mugging. He must be able to apply what he has learnt.

The advanced courses need to have a lot of freedom to determine
their flow. The flow can be determined by the interests of the
teacher, the interests of the students or influenced by recent events
in the world. None of this is possible if the teacher and the
students are constrained by the swords of the syllabus and the
examinations dangling over their heads. Teachers should also have the
freedom to have more lectures or more labs, Students have come to
college to learn. They like freedom but not free grades. My assertion
is that students are very unforgiving to teachers who do not teach
regardless of getting easy grades.

I do not expect any of these suggestions to be accepted during my
life time; but I hope that some thought is spent on our examination
system and an acceptable alternative found because I do not foresee
any significant improvement in the quality of our education without
this change.